


I’m The Root Of All That’s Evil, Yeah, But You Can Call Me Cookie

by Saucery



Series: Spideypool Stories [1]
Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Adorable, Adrenaline, Affection, Aftercare, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Am I Even Capable Of Writing Anything That Isn't Fluff?, And Peter Not Giving A Shit, Angst and Humor, Assassins & Hitmen, Bad Puns, Banter, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Breaking the Fourth Wall, CUTE VAMPIRES LOL, Canon-Typical Violence, Charity Auctions, Companionable Snark, Consent Issues, Contracts, Cute, Dark Comedy, Deadpool being Deadpool, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Dystopia, Eventually Followed By Gentle Sex, Existential Crisis, Explicit Language, Falling In Love, Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Frottage, Funny, Guilt, Happy Ending, I swear, Immortality, Immortals, Intense, Loneliness, Lookit Wade Tryna Be Scary, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mercenaries, Morality, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mythical Beings & Creatures, POV Wade Wilson, Pansexual Character, Peter Finds It Hella Attractive Though, Peter Is Boss AF, Peter Just Makes it REALLY REALLY HARD Okay?, Pining, Pop Culture, Predator/Prey, Protectiveness, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Sassy Peter, Scars, Scary Sex, Secret Identity, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Content, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Humor, Sexual Slavery, Size Difference, Slapstick, Sometimes Literally, Sugar Daddy, Supernatural Elements, Sweet, Tenderness, Top Drop, Topping from the Bottom, Vampire Sex, Vampires, Virginity, Virginity Kink, Wade Has A Conscience And Isn't Happy About It, Wade Is A Gentleman, Wade Is So Smitten It's Embarrassing, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:20:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deadpool is a vampire vigilante mercenary out to save the world. And also to make money. Preferably while saving the world. Hey, maintaining an immortal lifestyle—deadstyle? Technically, he’s dead, isn’t he?—is hella expensive. Especially when you have a scarred, pitted face resembling moldy French cheese, and can’t seduce your way into silk sheets and creature comforts.</p><p>Speaking of silk sheets, Wade’s are desperately cold and desperately lonely—cold because his circulation-free body does nothing to warm them, and lonely because, well, there’s no one <i>else</i> to warm them. Hasn’t been, for ages. And Wade’s all but lost hope of ever again finding a partner he might love.</p><p>That begins to change when he meets a poverty-stricken human boy selling his virginity to the highest bidder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adgx9wt63NY) song by the Bloodhound Gang.
> 
> Please note that I have not, as yet, made much headway into the comics, so Deadpool’s character is based primarily on the movie. The same goes for Weasel, who I have perhaps made more noble than he should be.

* * *

Attending a charity ball with a severed hand wasn’t exactly the done thing, so Wade had to swipe a fur stole from the cloak room and wrap it around his bleeding stump. The fur was conveniently red, much like the rest of Wade’s outfit. Wade took a moment to admire himself in a gilt-edged hallway mirror; with his guns and knives and the crimson stole, he looked like a particularly militant drag queen. And man, was he rockin’ that look.

He sauntered into the main hall with a sway in his hips. He wasn’t even the weirdest one there. Vampires like him outnumbered the humans, and there were a couple of demons, too, which meant there were folks with horns growing out of their heads and others with tails growing out of their asses. Some damn fine asses. There was this wendigo lady resplendent in a satiny gown, whose towering hairdo resembled a dildo. An elegant, pearl-studded dildo.

Hm. Studded dildos…

“Excuse me, sir,” said a quivery-nosed attendant in a butler’s tuxedo, with a strip of parchment dangling from his hands. “I don’t recognize you from the guest list.”

“Pshaw,” Wade said. “You don’t recognize _me_?”

“You’re wearing a mask, sir.”

“That’s because my face is so horrifying it’d turn you into stone if you saw it. Like Medusa, but without the hair. Consider the mask an act of kindness.”

The attendant’s nose quivered again. Crap, was he sniffing Wade? Must be a shapeshifter. Or a wererat. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to—”

“Chuck! My man!” Someone clapped Wade on the shoulder, and Wade whipped around to see Weasel, happily rumpled in a dinner jacket that probably hadn’t been laundered in at least a decade. “There you are!”

“Mr. Hammer,” said the attendant in awe, because Jack Hammer, a.k.a. Weasel, was the chief supplier of intelligence, weaponry and legitimate identities for the supernatural community. “Is this guest with you?”

“Yeah,” said Weasel. “I mean, with me, but not _with_ me. Er.”

“Jack!” Wade exclaimed, feigning heartbreak. “I thought we had something! Was that long, hot night in the Bahamas nothing to you?”

“What the heck,” Weasel said flatly. It wasn’t even a question.

“I… I should go,” said the attendant, tactfully, as he withdrew. “Have a lovely night, sirs.”

“Cheers for that,” Wade said to Weasel. “But who the frick is Chuck?”

“Your identity’s a secret, isn’t it? I just cooked up a name that rhymed with fuck. Seemed appropriate.” Weasel eyed Wade’s stole. “What’s that you’re wearing?”

“Like it? It accentuates my curves.”

“It accentuates your perversion, is what it does. You look even kinkier than you usually do.”

“Really? Thanks!”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Weasel challenged. “It’s a goddamn charity ball.”

“Well, you know me.” Wade cleared his throat. “I love balls.”

There was an awkward pause. “Whatever,” Weasel said, squinting suspiciously. “I’m here on a routine intel op. Gotta keep track of who goes to these shindigs, and who buys what.”

“So it’s an auction?”

“Yep. Typical slave auction. Which you’d be aware of if you’d intended to attend, so what’re you doing here? And don’t distract me with your pansexuality, this time.”

“Aw, snap. I was going to go off about my deep and sincere cock-worship.”

“Please. Spare me.”

“I’m here because… if there’s a party to crash, I’ll crash it?”

“Wade.” Weasel sighed. “I can smell your blood. You’re hurt. If you were a human, the vamps in this place would be all over you. Including me. And that’s disturbing.”

“Yeah, I smell like pickled testicles compared to those fragrant, flowery humans. Way to make me feel inadequate.”

“Will you quit fronting and just tell me what you’re up to? I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

Wade covertly lifted his stole. At least he wasn’t actively losing blood, now that his arm was healing and regrowing.

“What the—who cut off your hand?”

“Ajax.”

“That sire of yours you’ve been trying to kill for two centuries?”

“Finally found him. The bastard unexpectedly showed up downtown during my latest mission. We had a scuffle and he took off, but I heard from a lackey of his that he has a representative at this ball. A guy that resembles Agent Smith. Creepy sonovabitch. I’ll track the agent down and then track Ajax down, through him. Ajax doesn’t realize I’m… me. I’ll have the element of surprise.”

Weasel whistled. “Ajax got away? That’s shit on a stick.”

“Tell me about it. Actually, don’t. Unless you see Agent Smith lurking around.”

Before Weasel could answer, the music that been tinkling tastefully in the background suddenly built to a crescendo, and with a dramatic drumroll, the tacky purple velvet curtains at the end of the hall went up. What lay behind them was a marble stage, upon which was a pedestal. Behind the pedestal was a queue of slaves, disappearing into the shimmeringly veiled backstage area. A lot of slaves.

Tall slaves. Short slaves. Human slaves. Fey slaves.

“Greetings, fellow connoisseurs of slave-flesh!” boomed an MC pacing jovially along the stage, mike in hand. “We owe you our gratitude for the support you will give this city by purchasing the very best the slave industry has to offer! All proceeds will go to charity! We have a rich selection of wares today, ranging from…”

Wade tuned out. The whole business made him uncomfortable, because the concept of completely owning somebody gave him hives. It also sort of turned him on, even while it gave him hives, which made him feel conflicted and slightly sick in the stomach.

He surveyed the crowd, searching for Ajax’s—Francis’s—assistant and recruiter, Agent Smith.

There. Wade saw a likeness of Smith’s in the throng, raising a hand to bid on a slave, but before he could move, Weasel blockaded him with an outstretched arm.

“Look,” Weasel whispered, hushed.

“I’m lookin’,” Wade said, annoyed. “I see Agent Smith, okay? Lemme go.”

“No, _look_ ,” Weasel repeated, and Wade… looked.

He shouldn’t have looked. Because as soon as he saw who was on the pedestal, his nose caught a matching scent, a scent so rare and delicate and yet overpoweringly heady that he swayed for a second, stunned. His gums swelled and itched, and his fangs slid out in an instinctive, uncontrollable glide.

Fuck.

That never happened to him. Never. Not since—

“Yeah,” Weasel said, rather hoarse himself. “What a beauty, eh?”

A beauty, indeed. There was a boy of no more than nineteen or twenty on the platform, thin as a reed but stubbornly upright, chin up and spine ramrod-straight, despite the fact that he was being auctioned off to a bunch of monsters.

And most of all… Most of all, he was untouched. Utterly, exquisitely untouched. It was what made his scent so intoxicating.

The hall erupted into greedy, speculative murmurs, every vamp in the establishment going fangy and feral. The modestly-dressed slave on the stage withstood it all without quailing, courageous as a soldier at war. There was an old anger in his eyes, an anger that belied his age and struck a spark within Wade, like-to-like. 

“He’s a virgin,” Wade said, mindlessly parroting the disgusting spiel that MC was spouting. “And he’s—he’s so _young_. He can’t be ready for this. For any of this.”

“If I didn’t have a strict policy of not buying any wares of my own, I’d totally be bidding on that. Besides, isn’t your mark bidding on him? If Agent Smith acquires him for Ajax, you know what Ajax will do to him. It’ll be the same as what he did to you.”

Wade swore. Loudly and creatively. And stuck his remaining hand up in the air. “Yoo-hoo!” he called, waving, and the MC gaped at him. “I’ll outbid any offer by a million. ’Cause who isn’t into helpless, barely-legal virgins?”

The boy glared at him.

Wow.

“Uh. Yes, sir,” the MC said, “but we still have to proceed with the bidding. Shall I take your pledge as read?”

“Take it however you want, baby. Including in the ass.”

The MC paled.

Wade grinned. Fiercely. Like hell he’d let Fuck-You-Up Francis get his vicious paws on some poor college student that was likely only on that stage because he was buried in debt. 

The bidding continued. A hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand. A million. Two million.

Wade bounced on his heels, increasingly nervous.

“Holy cripes,” Weasel said, “you’re doing it. You’re doing it? You’re buying a slave.”

“Shut the fuck up and back my pledge, Weasel. I ain’t got that much money.”

“Yes, you do.”

“It’s on the black market, dumbass. In case you’ve forgotten my unofficial occupation as an assassin. I can’t use it for a legal purchase. Plus, I can’t put my name on the buyer’s contract. It’ll have to be yours. I’ll transfer the moolah to you, afterward.”

“Relax, Scarface. I got your back.”

Wade did love Weasel, sometimes. In a brotherly way. A non-incestuous, brotherly way. “What about your policy?”

“Rules are made to be broken, et cetera. I can square it with my almost extinct moral code if I don’t genuinely own the kid. It’ll be your soul on god’s chopping-block, not mine.”

“Your religiosity never fails to amuse me.”

“Not much does.”

“I’m not gonna do him,” Wade said.

Weasel snorted disbelievingly. “Sure. A vamp, in close quarters with _that_? Yep. No touchy.”

“I’m not,” Wade insisted.

Just then, the MC announced, in response to Agent Smith’s bid of four freaking million dollars that had effectively locked out the other bidders: “Going once! Going twice!”

“Yo, motherfucker!” Wade yelled. “What about me?”

The MC coughed. “The highest bidder is the gentleman in red, at five million dollars. Going once—”

“Six,” said Smith, tersely.

“Seven,” said Wade.

Smith seethed. Heh. Had Ajax commanded him not to spend more than a specified amount? Cheapskate.

“Aaaaaaand, sold to the gentleman in red.” The MC peered at Wade. “Whose name is…?”

“Who, li’l ol’ me? I’m just a spokesman for this filthy rich asshole over here,” Wade said, shoving Weasel forward so hard he stumbled. “His name’s Jack Hammer.”

The MC gazed at Weasel in adoration. Seven million bucks worth of adoration.

“This’ll tear a bigger hole in my bank account than a torpedo made of dicks,” Weasel mourned.

“I’ll plug that hole for you, don’t worry,” Wade reassured him.

“Never say that to me again.”

“Peter Parker,” the MC beamed, “sold to Mr. Hammer. We’ll send our lawyer out to you shortly, sir. Please wait in the buyer’s lounge. It’s to the left of the atrium.”

So the slave’s name was Peter. Wade turned to pursue Agent Smith, who was swiftly disappearing into the buzzing, gossiping throng, heading towards the exit, but Weasel halted him once again.

Wade huffed. “What are you, the self-proclaimed cockblocker of vengeance? I’m going after Smith, dude. Don’t stop me.”

“I absolutely will. I am _not_ taking the delicious Peter Parker home. Got it? You are. Text Dopinder later and have him pick you up in that giant lobster you call a car.”

“You wound me,” Wade said, betrayed. “Don’t diss the lobster. It matches my costume.”

“Uh-huh. Very subtle. I have no idea how nobody’s figured out who you are, by now.”

“You’ve cost me my violent and satisfying revenge,” Wade groused, but he didn’t mind it as much as he pretended. As much as he ought to have. Because there was a new, awful fascination pulling him in the direction of a spindly human slave with very visible authority issues.

What was wrong with him? Finding Ajax was everything. It’d always been everything.

“At least regrow your hand, first. You can’t fight a wet noodle in this condition. I’d accuse you of having a death wish if you weren’t already dead.”

“Undead,” Wade corrected, vaguely, because Peter was being led off the stage, and the slope of his bowed neck was more defeated than Wade could stand. And more full of audibly pounding, agonizingly pure virginal blood than Wade was confident he could resist. Drinking that would feel like getting hopped up on crystal meth. Not that Wade was planning on drinking that. Or getting hopped up on crystal meth.

“Aliens can see your crush from space,” Weasel said, as he started walking toward the lounge with Wade.

“Good thing they don’t exist, then.”

“Don’t let Mulder catch you saying that.”

“Only you would be paranoid about fictional characters overhearing you. Wait. Is that why you’re paranoid about god?”

“Crush. From. Space.”

“It’s not a crush.”

“Nah, just an increasingly erotic fixation on a tasty little morsel with skin that looks like velvet.”

“He’s not a morsel. He’s a person.”

“I notice you didn’t deny the rest of my description.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“In your dreams. Loser.”

They reached the lounge, which was dimly-lit like some kinda romantic restaurant, and the fakeness of that gave Wade the chills. It was a timely reminder that there was nothing crush-like going on, here. Wade’s “fixation” was evil and predatory and… and _evil_. It was his inner vamp, that was all. His inner sinner.

Hey, that rhymed.

“Mr. Hammer,” said a tiny suit-and-tie goblin, ostensibly the lawyer, carrying a briefcase too massive for his frame. “If you’d sign the paperwork…”

“Fine, fine,” Weasel said, and sat at an oval table with multiple flower arrangements on it, accepting the green-feathered quill that was handed to him.

Wade’s attention wandered. It wasn’t his fault. Peter was _right there_ , still glaring at him, and damn Weasel for putting visions of velvet skin into Wade’s sick, depraved mind, anyway. Not to mention the blood under that skin…

No. Bad vampire. Wade had kept the beast of his hunger tamed for longer than he could remember, feeding only on enemies he hunted and not on anybody he actively desired—not that he’d actively desired anything in a while—and he wasn’t about to cave to a momentary distraction. He’d take the kid under his dubious wing, employ him like Dopinder, and eventually establish a harmless, platonic system of playful banter that would keep Peter away from Wade’s fangs and from Wade’s bed.

Wade’s cold, empty bed. How many eons had it been since Wade had gotten laid, again?

“Chuck,” hissed Weasel, “ _Chuck_ ,” and Wade snapped out of his funk, belatedly recognizing it as Weasel’s lame pseudonym for him.

“What?” Wade asked.

“C’mere.” Weasel slid the pile of papers he’d been reading—Peter’s contract—back to the goblin. His tone became formal and businesslike. “Thank you, Mr. Grellet. Before I sign, I require my… assistant, Chuck, to be apprised of the basic terms of the contract and to negotiate them with Peter.”

“On your behalf?”

“On his own behalf.”

“But the slave belongs to you, sir.”

“Legally, yes. He is my purchase. But he’s a gift to my assistant for years of dedicated service. I would prefer it if my assistant was satisfied with the contract, you see.”

“Your masked, mysterious assistant.” The goblin’s eyes were sharp. “With a name that smacks of disuse, given that your assistant all but neglected to respond to it.”

“Listen, you miniature Meatloaf lookalike,” Wade said. “Don’t mention smacks in my presence unless you want a spanking. You’re not my type, but spankies are for everyone.”

The goblin was unimpressed.

Weasel smiled with a glacial patience. A terrifyingly glacial patience. “I could simply cancel my purchase prior to making it, costing you a hefty seven million dollars. All I ask is that it is my name on the dotted line, but my assistant’s verbal consent. It’s a minor detail, that needs no mentioning in print. And, as you are a legal counsel, this conversation has to remain confidential.” Weasel’s smile widened. “Surely you understand.”

Grellet the goblin went silent, studying Weasel. It was bizarrely similar to how Deadpool, Wade’s mercenary counterpart, sized up opponents prior to a battle. Weighing up the income from the sale against obeying the strictest letter of the law must’ve settled it, though, because Grellet nodded. “I understand.”

Wade began singing ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money” under his breath. Peter blinked at him, nonplussed. What, did Peter think vampires couldn’t appreciate pop music? Who wouldn’t appreciate ABBA?

Or a stiff drink, at this point.

Or a stiff dick.

“Why do I have to negotiate stuff?” Wade said. “I don’t negotiate deals, er, Mr. Hammer. That’s what you do. I just… execute those deals. I’m practically an executioner. Thanks for the present, he’s certainly very nice, but—”

“Chuck,” said Weasel, “sit down. You’ll be responsible for this boy’s welfare. The least you can do is discuss the terms of his contract with him, and why he’s selling himself. If you don’t agree, or if he doesn’t, the contract is annulled and we get our… I mean I get my money back.”

“And I get sold to someone else,” Peter said, out of the blue.

Wade shivered. That _voice_. It was simultaneously soft and strong, masculine and quiet. There was that courage in it, the courage Wade had noted earlier, and bravery had always stirred Wade’s porridge, so to speak. He had odd kinks.

But the goblin took Peter’s interjection as an opportunity to launch into a lecture on law. This was why Wade hated goblins. And lawyers. Especially goblin lawyers.

“When slavery was legalized in 1768,” Grellet said, “the slave’s terms had to be respected, and that is still so. The government watchdog established thirty-three years after the instatement of slavery has been extremely thorough in its regular investigations into the lives of slaves and their owners. Within six months of the ownership commencing, an agent from the Department of Sentient Properties will visit the house of the master to ensure that both master and slave are meeting their contractual obligations. If not, heavy financial penalties are applicable to the master, and incarceration or reselling are applicable to the slave.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wade whined. “My ears are bleeding.”

“So’s my wallet,” Weasel said. “Sit. Down.”

Wade sat down. He had to do right by Peter, he supposed. Even if it meant having Grellet drone on for an eternity.

“What I wish to convey, Mr. Hammer,” Grellet said, “is that whether or not it is in print, your assistant might be charged with a crime if he violates the contract, or that, even if he isn’t charged, you might be held accountable in his stead, as the presumed owner and therefore perpetrator of those violations. Thus, it is imperative that ‘Chuck’ not violate the contract. Particularly in physical aspects that can be easily detected.”

“I don’t beat up slaves, if that’s what you’re implying,” Wade growled.

Grellet didn’t give the slightest hint of being intimidated. “I merely seek to clarify the situation, for the benefit of all those involved. Even Mr. Parker, because the slave, if he does not perform his duties as stipulated by the contract, will forfeit his fraction of the money gained from his purchase and will be duly arrested for dereliction of duty.” Grellet indicated the seat next to Wade. “Mr. Parker, if you will.”

“Mr. Parker won’t,” Peter replied reflexively, then stuttered an apology. “S-sorry,” he said, and took the proffered seat. He was antsy, tapping his fingertips on the tabletop, but Wade couldn’t blame him.

The negotiations for Peter’s entire life were about to begin.

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

The contract negotiations had turned Wade’s admittedly mushy brain to even mushier mush. But what galled him the most was that he hadn’t even been able to retract the sexual aspects of the contract, because that would attract the kind of suspicion he couldn’t afford, especially with Ajax at large and ostensibly targeting Peter.

Ajax had a finger in every pie in this goddamn city, and if he caught whiff of a mysteriously altruistic, non-sexual slave purchase by an equally mysterious patron who was using Jack Hammer as a front, then it wouldn’t take much for Ajax to deduce that the mysterious patron was his former ward, Wade, and that Wade had snatched Ajax’s next victim right out from under Ajax’s nose. Ajax’s annoyingly aristocratic, turned-up-at-the-world nose. Not that Wade didn’t hate the world, but unlike Ajax, he just gave it the middle finger. Ajax’s disdainful supervillain monologues were a tad too hoity-toity for Wade’s tastes.

So, two hours of mind-numbing legalese and heartbreaking backstory later, Wade slumped into his lobster-shaped sports car with Dopinder at the wheel. The Maserati’s seats were a creamy-textured red leather, as red as fresh blood. Wade had never before considered his choice of automobile upholstery garish—or clichéd—but it now struck him how ridiculous it was for a vampire dressed all in red to get into a car that was also all red. Talk about overkill. And Wade was usually fond of the word “overkill,” for both its thematic and linguistic qualities, but—

But perhaps the cost of the car was more offensive than its color scheme. Wade saw Peter’s jaw clench as he surveyed the luxurious interior and mahogany dashboard, as if disgusted that anyone could be rich enough to own such a car. It must mortally offend him, given that he’d just had to auction himself out of poverty.

Which, for some reason, was embarrassing _Wade_. What did Wade have to be embarrassed about? He’d worked damned hard for centuries to amass his wealth. And extreme wealth was not an embarrassment. Why was Wade suddenly wishing that he had a humble Toyota to cart Peter home in? He hadn’t been this self-conscious in decades.

“Hey, uh. Peter,” Wade said awkwardly. “I get that your aunt’s ill. But would she be all right with you selling yourself? To a vamp, at that? Would she be happy with where you’re getting the money for her treatment?”

“My aunt thinks I got a job at Stark Industries.”

Wade raised an eyebrow. “And why would she think that?”

“Because I lied to her face,” Peter snapped. “What do you think?”

“Ouch. Tone down the bitchiness, maybe? Or don’t, I’m kinda into that.”

Peter looked away. Pointedly. Out of the window.

Double ouch. “Listen, I’m not gonna—” Wade coughed. “I’m not gonna take advantage of you.”

Peter glanced back at Wade. “You just bought me at a slave auction. That already classifies as taking advantage of me.”

Triple ouch. This kid was brutal. Which was working for Wade in ways his spandex suit would soon make visible, if he didn’t distract himself with unsexy images. _Weasel in lingerie, Weasel in lingerie_ , Wade repeated to himself frantically. Out loud, he said: “What I intended to say was… I won’t lay a hand on you.”

“Right,” Peter said incredulously. “What about fangs? Will your fangs get anywhere near me?”

“Nope,” Wade said cheerfully, even as he tried manfully to keep his fangs from emerging again.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“You are. It’s okay. People lie to me all the time. Doesn’t mean I’m going to fall for it.”

“And I thought I had trust issues,” Wade marveled.

“You have seven million dollars to spare,” Peter said. “Your trust issues are very different from my trust issues.”

Fair point. “So you’ve worked out that it wasn’t Weasel who bought you. Other than on paper.”

“I’m not a fool. I can read between the lines. And I… I’m prepared.” Peter’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and there was no way Wade could avoid looking at it, the fragility of it, as damning as it was inviting. “For whatever you’ll do to me.”

“I won’t—”

“You will. You _should_. It’s only right. It’s what the contract states.”

“I don’t give a crap about the con—” Wade began to say, but Peter just steamrolled over him. For a slave, he sure was bossy.

“You bought me, so you get to have me. If you don’t, what use am I to you? You’ll sell me if all I do is sit around looking pretty.”

Actually, Wade would pay good money for someone like Peter to sit around looking pretty.

“And I can’t take being sold again and again. I just can’t. I can’t take being bandied about among the vampires, being passed from vamp to vamp like some type of bloody joint.”

“So I’m going to have to smoke you like the joint you are, because you prefer a safe and consistent exploiter to a never-ending series of potentially deadly exploiters?”

Peter met Wade’s gaze steadily. “Yes.”

“What if _I’m_ a deadly exploiter?”

“One’s still preferable to many.”

“Your estimation of my character flatters me.”

Peter’s lips twitched, and for a breathless, stunned moment, Wade could almost see what it would be like for Peter to smile, _really_ smile, not this bitter little twitch of a thing. “I figured it would.”

“I still can’t believe you’re trying to convince me to deflower you.”

Peter’s cheeks went a dull red. “How’d you know it’d be a deflowering?”

“I can, um. Smell your virginity.”

“Wow. That’s, like, not disturbing. At all.”

“If you reckon that’s disturbing, seeing my face under this mask and having physical contact with me will be even more disturbing. Which is why I shouldn’t sleep with you.”

“I don’t care if you look like the Croc from Batman, you’re still going to fulfill your end of the contract so I can claim my money.”

“Now, that’s just cruel. I promise I’m at least two percentage points nicer-looking than the Croc. Kudos to you for the pop culture reference, though.”

“Thanks.” It was a sarcastic response, but Peter plucked at his silky, slave-auction pants as if acutely missing his jeans. There was a vulnerability and an honesty to the gesture that made Wade’s long-dead heart skip a beat.

“No problem.”

 

* * *

 

When they got home—or when Wade got home, because this clearly wasn’t Peter’s home, not yet—Dopinder gave Wade the stink-eye as they got out of the car.

“Don’t judge me,” Wade said. “ _I_ didn’t lock my romantic rival in a box and throw it into the Hudson.”

“You’re the one who suggested I do it!” Dopinder exclaimed.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t the one who did it!”

“I pulled the box out before he drowned,” Dopinder grumbled. “Sort of.”

“What?” Peter said behind Wade, faintly.

“Nothing!” Wade scowled at Dopinder, who gave him a bullheaded, we’re-going-to-discuss-your-life-decisions glower that was absolutely unfair. Buying a slave to save said slave from potential dismemberment at the hands of Ajax was an entirely justifiable decision. Wade’s attraction to the slave notwithstanding.

With friends like Dopinder and Weasel, who needed enemies? There were times Wade was certain Dopinder and Weasel must be meeting behind his back to exchange notes on Wade and drink each other into matching stupors while bemoaning Wade’s many stupidities. They probably had a drinking game based just on him.

Jackasses.

Peter was eyeing the massive Edwardian-style building before him with trepidation. There was a fountain in the courtyard, moss-green but functional, the spouts formed out of stone swans. Dopinder had parked right next to it.

“Welcome to your new abode,” Wade said grandly, throwing open the doors to his mansion.

Peter gaped at the towering Doric pillars and gilt-edged leaves carved into the ceiling, converging on a giant chandelier directly above the lounge area. Again, Wade had to fight off a peculiar embarrassment at having more than he deserved. Wasn’t having _Peter_ more than Wade deserved? Having a whole person under his total control?

Nah, he wasn’t going to dwell on that. It would only freak him out.

“You’re, er, going to have your own bedroom.” Wade pointed at the spiraling ivory staircase leading upstairs. “Somewhere up there. Pick any room you like.”

Peter frowned at him. “Why?”

“You don’t wanna pick a room?”

“No, why aren’t I sleeping with you?”

_Because I’d never get any sleeping done_. “Because you wouldn’t like sleeping in a coffin. Which is where I sleep, by the way.”

“And where’s your coffin?”

“In the basement, far away from any sources of sunlight. That’s where my bedroom is. Don’t go there unless it’s an emergency. Which it shouldn’t ever be. This house has a killer security system.”

Peter paled. “Um. Killer, as in… it kills intruders?”

“Bingo.” Wade grinned. “You’re a clever boy.”

“Master Wade,” said a mousy voice behind them, and Wade jumped about a foot in the air.

“Jesus!” Wade clapped a hand over his chest. “Nearly fuckin’ killed me, Bertha. Not that I can be killed so easily, but still.” Normally, Wade would have sensed the approach of his diminutive housekeeper, but all his senses were presently attuned to Peter, so intensely that Wade couldn’t sense anything else. It was baffling. “Are all the beds made up?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bertha. She was the squinty-eyed, wrinkly old crone who had been serving Wade since she’d been a young mother aged twenty. She was now a ninety-plus great-grandmother whose feeble frame shook when she attempted the simplest of tasks, but Wade couldn’t bring himself to fire her. She was mostly a token employee, these days, supervising a younger taskforce of maids who she had coached into nigh-invisibility, on account of Wade’s penchant for privacy.

“Bertha, this is Peter. Peter, Bertha.”

“Greetings, Master Peter.” Bertha curtseyed. “I’m the housekeeper.”

“I’m the bed-slave,” Peter replied, and Wade choked on his own spittle.

“Wha—no, you’re not! He’s not,” Wade said to Bertha, quickly, lest she start giving him the stink-eye like Dopinder had.

“I see,” Bertha said instead, noncommittally. Her wispy white hair was, as always, struggling to escape from its severe bun. “Master Peter, allow me to escort you to the guest bedrooms.”

“Are you… Are you human?” Peter asked her as she led him up the staircase.

“Unfortunately,” Bertha said. She climbed the stairs at a snail’s pace, her knees quaking at the strain. Peter rushed to help her, but she batted him away. “My ageing, creaking bones announce my mortality with every step.”

“Ha ha,” Wade called out to her. “Like I haven’t offered to turn you at your every birthday.”

Bertha looked back at him, as stern and motherly as ever. “And as I have told you at my every birthday, Master Wade, surrounding yourself with immortal servants will not cure you of your loneliness.”

Shit. Everyone had it out for him today, didn’t they? Peter was goggling at Bertha like he was expecting Wade to rip her throat out for the insubordination, but as Peter would soon learn, everybody Wade hired was insubordinate to him. That was just how it was. Maybe that was even why he hired ’em, because he couldn’t stand having sycophantic cronies kissing his ass 24/7. Wade was no Ajax. And he didn’t plan to be.

“Yadda yadda yadda,” Wade said to Bertha. “So I’m a pathetic loner at the ripe ol’ age of three-hundred-and-sixty-four. Thanks for the reminder, Mom. I swear I’ll introduce you to the love of my life _someday_.”

Bertha smiled her thin, barely-there smile, as she tended to do whenever Wade called her “Mom.” Peter was just blinking rapidly, as if amazed that an all-powerful vampire would tolerate this much disobedience from his attendants.

Heck, at the rate Peter was going, he’d fit right in.

 

* * *

 

Dinner—well, breakfast, it was scarcely past midnight—was served in the dining hall several hours later. Peter was wearing a jeans-and-T-shirt combo that he was obviously more comfortable in than he’d been in his gauzy auction outfit. Wade had sent Dopinder out to fetch clothing for Peter from the kitsch menswear shops downtown, so Peter now had a basic wardrobe ranging from casual to formal. Wade reminded himself to get a black MasterCard issued in Peter’s name, so Peter could buy whatever he wished with it.

“Have you settled into a room?” Wade asked from across the narrow table at the center of the otherwise spacious dining room, because he didn’t like those huge, oblong monstrosities that seated people at distant ends.

Peter twirled his spaghetti around his fork. His shoulders tensed when he noticed that Wade wasn’t consuming ordinary food but a beef steak so rare that it was still bleeding, and a glass of red wine that was a bit too viscous to be wine. “Yeah. The blue bedroom with the stag tapestry.”

“That’s a comfy bedroom. But you don’t have to tell me which bedroom you chose, exactly.”

“Yes, I do. In case you’d like to visit me in it.”

Wade almost spat out his mouthful. “You—no! That’s not—you don’t have to—”

“Chimichanga, sir?” interrupted the waiter who appeared at Wade’s elbow, carrying a steaming platter with a chimichanga on it. A chimichanga that was oozing melted cheese. “Madam Bertha sent it.”

“Oh, thank _god_.” Wade was as grateful for the change of subject as he was for the chimichanga, which he dug into with gusto when the waiter placed it before him. “Get Bertha to tell the new chef I’m not into this refined, healthy bullshit. It’s not like I need to eat for nutrition.” Wade made a shooing motion at his extra-extra-rare steak. “And get rid of this, wouldja? What about you, Pete? You fine with that tiny, fancy-ass quail on your pasta? ’Cause you can get burgers and pizzas if you like.”

“I’m—I’m fine with the quail,” Peter said, as if he felt asking for a customized menu of his own would be overstepping his bounds.

Wade shrugged; Peter would get onboard eventually. “Your loss.”

The waiter disappeared with the rejected steak, and for a few minutes, there was no noise except for Wade’s enthusiastic chewing and the relatively sedate clinking of Peter’s fork against his plate.

“So,” Peter said after a while, mutedly, as if sharing a secret. “Bertha called you Master Wade. Which means your name isn’t Chuck.”

“Eh, you must’ve suspected it wasn’t my name, anyway.”

“I did, but… why didn’t you buy me under your real name?”

“I have my reasons.” Assassin reasons. “Once I’ve paid Weasel—er, Hammer, the dude who supposedly bought you—your ownership will officially be switched to me, but it’ll be a private purchase, which means it won’t go on-record at a public auction. After your papers are transferred to me, I can legally call you my own without drawing too much attention to myself—or to you. Until then, it’ll be smarter for you to keep my non-Chuckness on the down-low. The rest of my staff is sworn to secrecy, too; they’re all loyal to me.”

“I can see that,” Peter said quietly, as if the loyalty of Wade’s staff reflected positively on Wade. Or so Wade hoped. “Bertha, she… She resembles Aunt May.”

“Your sick aunt who’s in the hospital,” Wade recalled from the negotiations.

“Can I visit her tomorrow?”

“You can visit her anytime. Just inform me or Bertha, so we know where you’re going in case of trouble.”

“What trouble?”

_Ajax’s agent tracking you down and stealing you from me_. “General trouble. Don’t want you getting mugged on a random Friday night.”

“Okay. And can you…” Peter’s voice hitched. Was he nervous? “Can you show me your face?”

“What, my ugly mug?” Wade had been avoiding taking off his mask, only flipping up the bottom so he could eat. Now, reluctantly, he lifted the rest of it—up and up and up, in excruciating increments, until it was completely off. He didn’t look at Peter as he laid the mask aside on the table, beside his half-eaten chimichanga.

There was a ringing silence.

No more fork-noises. Nada. Peter had evidently stopped eating altogether. Maybe he _couldn’t_ eat, because he was on the verge of puking. Puking would be a perfectly understandable reaction to the pockmarked ruin of Wade’s face. The Big Reveal always sucked. Wade pitied those on the receiving end of it more than he pitied himself.

Gradually, the fork-noises resumed.

Wade slowly looked up. He waited for the inevitable comment, the exclamation of disgust or horror or unwilling sympathy that routinely followed his unmasking.

It never came.

Peter continued eating as if everything was the same, as if discovering the hideousness of his master wasn’t cringe-worthy. As if discovering the grotesqueness of the man he thought was about to _fuck him_ wasn’t cringe-worthy.

It occurred to Wade, then, that the courage he’d seen in Peter at the auction hadn’t been an isolated incident.

Peter Parker had a backbone of steel.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL WADE YOU ALREADY DID INTRODUCE BERTHA TO THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE
> 
> HERE'S A CLUE:
> 
> IT'S PETER


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for your comments! They keep me going!

* * *

 

Wade’s bedroom contained both a coffin and a bed, but he hadn’t slept on the bed in eons, because it felt so vast and empty and cold. The close, marginally warmer confines of his velvet-lined coffin suited him more.

Or they would’ve suited him more, had he decided to stay in.

He didn’t stay in.

Wade ventured out after his meal, because Peter looked and smelled too much like another sort of meal—a delicious, blood-filled delicacy—for Wade to share the premises with him at night. The constant awareness of Peter sleeping just upstairs, defenseless and loose-limbed and unselfconsciously seductive, would wear away at Wade’s self-control. It wasn’t wise to linger in the mansion as long as it had that scent in it. That enticing, take-me-I’m-a-virgin scent. Peter might as well have a “Drink Me” label pasted on him, like that bottle from Alice in Wonderland. Or would it be an “Eat Me” label?

Fuck. Wade had to get out.

And he did. He stocked up on weaponry and left the mansion. After all, he had jobs to—heh—execute. There was a banker with ties to the mafia on Wade’s nightly hit-list, and a pedophile priest whose murder wasn’t so much a paid gig as a voluntary pursuit. A public service. Wade relished killing the bastards who’d earned it, and this lowlife had more child abuse allegations against him than the Catholic Church had been able to sweep under the rug. So Wade wrapped _him_ in a rug and set it alight. And then watched it burn. Brightly. On the roof of the church. There was a lot of screaming, at least for the first few minutes. It was very satisfying. It was even enough to make Wade forget about the virgin pseudo-bride waiting for him at home.

For about five seconds.

Then, Wade began to regret not drinking the priest’s blood. Yes, Wade had standards, and drinking the blood of such evil swine would be like sucking the puss out of a rotting pustule, but if Wade could keep it down, it would fill his belly and prevent him from hungering for Peter’s blood. Peter’s pure, rich, heavenly—

No. He had to stop fantasizing about feasting on the kid. Wade had morals. Some morals. About a handful. But he _did_.

Wade had to confront reality; the odd glass of blood-infused wine at dinner wouldn’t cut it. Not anymore. His body craved blood directly from the source, not the lukewarm, half-assed, bottled and branded stuff from local wineshops. He’d have to go back to drinking from his assassination victims, sickening as it was. He couldn’t… He wouldn’t drink from Peter. He’d sworn not to.

When Wade got back to his mansion, the layered spandex of his costume was gummy with gore. He grimaced as he dragged it off himself in clingy, squelchy inches, leaving sticky red trails on his arms and legs. A patch of what Wade surmised was bowel tissue was stuck to his boots. Yikes. He hoped the laundry maids could cope with the cleanup nightmare that his clothing was. He fully expected them to start sending him death threats, one of these days. Increasingly creative death threats. He wouldn’t blame them.

Wade finished stripping and stood under the scalding shower, letting its blessed heat soak into his perpetually-cold flesh. Idly, he toed the blood clots pooling on the tiled floor toward the drain. Despite the post-kill stink that hung about him, Peter’s scent still somehow made it through, a waft of sweetness that had Wade’s eyes fluttering shut. It undid him, all the knots inside him that he’d forgotten he had, and he exhaled in relief. He almost fell asleep like that, propped against the shower wall with his body more relaxed than he could ever remember it being, before he remembered that dawn was just an hour or so away and that he really oughta sleep in his coffin—if sleep was what he wanted.

Of course it was sleep he wanted. He couldn’t afford to want anything else.

Wade stumbled out of the bathroom, had a brief altercation with a towel, bypassed the bed like he always did and crashed into his coffin. Being an undead mercenary was exhausting.

 

* * *

 

“Master Wade?” Someone rapped sharply on the coffin. Bertha. It was Bertha. Damn her. Not many other people had the balls to wake up a sleeping vampire. And Bertha didn’t even have balls. Argh, what a traumatizing mental image.

Wade, face-down in velvet and encompassed in darkness, groaned. “Whazzit?”

“Master Peter is departing for the hospital to see his aunt. He said I should notify you.”

“Whuh. Muh. Mmkay. Go ’way.”

“Very well, Master Wade.” Bertha’s footsteps padded away.

Wade turned over in his coffin, squinting irritably up at the pitch blackness. Why did he _ever_ have to be woken up? Vampire sleep was the best sleep. You slept like the dead. Literally.

Then Wade realized why his lizard brain wasn’t letting him go back to sleep.

Peter. Peter was going out. Out where Ajax was. Ajax, who had recently tried and failed to acquire him, and who must’ve redoubled his efforts to locate Peter. Upon the advent of biotechnology, Ajax had begun choosing the subjects of his torturous experiments based on their genetic profiles, and if he’d discovered that Peter’s profile had potential, he’d persist in searching for Peter no matter what.

“Shit,” Wade cursed, shoving his coffin’s lid off him and stepping out. The bedside clock said it was noon. _Noon_. What an ungodly hour to be awake. “Shitty shit shit. Helpless li’l human brats with adorable li’l faces.” 

Annoyed, he clomped over to his wardrobe, threw it open, and saw that the maids had, indeed, miraculously cleaned and dried his outfit in a couple of hours. Maybe they were witches. Maybe they used magic.

Whatever. Magic was a-okay with him if it meant he could wear his suit. If it weren’t for it covering him from his scalp to his fingertips, he’d never be able to go out during the day without charring like an over-grilled kebab on a barbecue.

After putting the costume on and rechecking that there were no rips—although why would there be, if his maids were overachieving witches?—he ran up to the main landing, flung open its arched window and jumped onto the jutting pipes. From there, it was easy to scale the brickwork up to the rooftop and leap off the edge onto the neighboring building, and the building after that, and the building after that, shadowing the path that Peter was treading below. It was exhilarating, part-flight and part-hunt, although Wade had to reel in his hunting instincts when they evoked a rather inappropriate reaction from his anatomy. Peter was just too tempting; Wade hadn’t tracked prey this gorgeous since the eighteenth century.

Except that Peter wasn’t Wade’s prey, was he? He was Wade’s dependent, under Wade’s protection. Wade had to switch gears from Predator 101 to Momma Bear, which he hadn’t done in ages. It felt weird.

Peter’s small figure crossed the street to the bus-stop, got on a bus, bought a ticket with the spare change Bertha must’ve given him, and traveled across town to Mercy Hospital.

Wade followed as inconspicuously as he could in his chili-red outfit, not straying from the rooftops and hiding behind gables.

Mercy Hospital, true to its name, mercifully had an even taller skyscraper facing it. Wade could clamber along the eaves, conceal himself behind an unoccupied balcony, and spy on Peter as the boy disappeared between the hopsital’s sliding doors. Soon he reappeared in a seventh-floor window, in a group ward where—if Wade strained his superhuman vision—he could see a bunch of old folks lying around on cots. Like a depressing, geriatric pop band. Among them was a lady who looked practically cadaverous, all fragile, blue-veined wrists and bony hands. She was hooked up to multiple machines with tubes going in and out of her, and Wade winced when he saw Peter pull up a stool beside her bed.

So this was why Peter had sold himself. Damn, the sight of her made _Wade_ want to sell himself, and he wasn’t even related to her.

She roused from her rest only once during Peter’s visit, and they had what appeared to an affectionate conversation, because she cheered up upon seeing her nephew. It was then that Wade saw the woman she must’ve been before her cancer struck—Peter’s beloved Aunt May, a bustling, energetic person with a cheeky sense of humor. She reached out to ruffle Peter’s hair with trembling fingers, and Peter’s expression was just—it was _everything_ , in that instant. Joy and love and hope and grief and a grim, unwavering despair.

Wade looked away. There was a twist inside him, a gut-wrenching, sympathetic nausea, and if this was what Peter experienced on a daily basis, it was no wonder he was snippy with Wade. That, and seeing May’s condition was triggering Wade majorly. Wade had been there, where she was, three hundred years ago. Wade had been dying. And Vanessa had been sitting by his bed. If Ajax hadn’t interfered with those misleading, manipulative promises of a cure, Wade would have—

No. Not going there. Ever. Those memories were off-limits. And with good cause.

When Wade looked back, May had slipped back into her slumber. Peter just sat there, gazing hollowly at her heartbeat on the heart monitor, as if he knew her heart might flatline at any moment.

Wade remained motionless on his balcony, silently accompanying Peter on his vigil, until Peter left the hospital and Wade tailed him home.

 

* * *

 

“Where were you last night?”

Wade took his chair at the dining table, opposite Peter’s. It was dinnertime again. “What do you mean, where was I? You sound like the wife of a cheating husband. Don’t worry, darling, I wasn’t wandering off for secret trysts.”

“You were hunting,” Peter said flatly. “Weren’t you.”

It wasn’t even a question. Wade hummed absently, digging into his pancakes. They were incredible—as fluffy as clouds—which meant that the new chef Wade had complained about yesterday was on his way to redeeming himself. Also, eating pancakes at ass o’clock was somehow even more fun than eating pancakes for breakfast, like most humans did. “How’d you even know I wasn’t around?”

“I…” Peter went pink. “I knocked on your bedroom door.”

Wade angled his fork at Peter. “Did I not warn you—explicitly warn you, even—to never, ever go to my room? And why weren’t you sleeping?”

“Waiting for you to come to me was more nerve-wracking than me just… going to you.”

Brave. Peter was so brave. “I’ve said this before, but I won’t exploit you like that.”

“Okay, okay,” Peter said with palpable disbelief. “But to go back to my original question… Were you hunting? Were you crossing people off the Feeding List?”

The Feeding List was released by the state government every week, listing criminals who would otherwise have been on death row. It was far cheaper for the prison system to release them into the community with their photos and names published in every single newspaper, in a list addressed to all vampires, wendigos and demons. Most of the criminals were dead within days of their release, if not hours. It saved the government the cost of incarceration and execution. It was simultaneously an effective crime deterrent, because no controlled execution could match the rapacious brutality of being utterly destroyed by an unholy fiend.

Personally, Wade loathed feeding on these criminals for the same reason he loathed feeding on his assassination targets—they tasted like crap. But hey, if Peter found socially-sanctioned hunting easier to stomach than Wade occasionally getting paid to commit homicide, then Wade could roll with it.

“Why?” Wade asked carefully. “Would it bother you if I killed people?”

Peter put a hand to his mouth and looked down at his uneaten meal. “The Feeding List, it’s—it’s legal, and everybody _says_ it’s moral, but—”

“But you don’t think it is.”

“I guess it’s preferable to killing innocent citizens and feeding on them. But what if some of those criminals were framed? What if they were innocent?”

“I do my research before every kill, Petey.” Most of the research was courtesy of Weasel and his endlessly detailed portfolios on every target, but still. “If there’s any doubt at all about their trials, or about their juries, I don’t go after them.”

“You wouldn’t have to go hunting if you could feed right here.”

Wade gawked at Peter. “You can’t mean…”

Peter looked back at him evenly. “You bought me as a bed-slave and a blood-slave. That was what the contract said. So you could always… Um, you couldn’t drink me dry, but if you sipped from me everyday, you wouldn’t get hungry enough to kill anybody. You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t have to resort to the Feeding List.”

Wade’s head spun. He could have fresh, clean blood on tap. Blood willingly offered, with a lovely, lissome body twining around his, yielding to him, _yielding_ —

No. To distract himself from Peter’s bewitching scent and absolutely devastating proposition, he asked: “Are you trying to fulfill your contractual obligations to me, or are you trying to save people’s lives?”

“A bit of both?” Peter fiddled with his napkin.

Wade got up. He hadn’t finished his pancakes, but he was suddenly certain that if he stayed in the same space as Peter, he’d do something untoward. Very, very untoward. “I gotta go,” he said, more tersely than he intended to, but, shit, he had to leave ASAP. “See you ’round, Peter. Ask Bertha to show you to the library. You can get your study schedule for college prep sorted out.”

Peter partly rose, too. “Wh-Where are you going?”

“I need to transfer the money I owe to Weasel.” It was even a valid excuse. Wade would transfer every penny he had to Weasel, a thousand times over, if it only got him out of this situation. This intolerable, irresistible, preposterous situation.

Wade was in such a hurry to escape, he almost tripped over his own feet on his way out.

Vampires. Graceful. Right.

 

* * *

 

A short while later, after transmitting his funds to Weasel online, Wade trudged drowsily to his bedroom. His nap had been unfairly disrupted today, and he was eager to catch up on his lost sleep. Already in the midst of yanking his shirt off, he didn’t notice he had company until he was past the threshold. It wasn’t that he hadn’t picked up on Peter’s scent—it was everywhere—but he’d been so determined to ignore it that his consciousness had relegated it to the sidelines.

Now, that scent hit him like a goddamn _wall_ , a wave that slammed into him, syrupy and honeyed and overpowering.

Because Peter was right there, beside Wade’s bed. Unclothed. Exposed. His eyes were downcast, like he was shy. His arms were wrapped around himself, like he was scared.

He was exquisite.

Wade staggered back against the door. His fangs surfaced with such force that they hurt.

If Peter saw Wade’s fangs, he didn’t flinch from them. He just stood there, smooth and pale and luminous as a pearl. He was unbearably slender, the curve of his moonlit spine like a note of music, silvery in the dark.

“Oh, god.” Wade’s heart lurched in his chest, like a long-buried anchor being dragged out of the seabed. “You’re beautiful.”

And then, he fled.

He high-tailed it outta the bedroom like a Looney Tunes character with its ass on fire.

His _dick_ felt like it was on fire. In fact, Wade felt like he was on fire all over, frying to a crisp as if he was outdoors, unprotected, in the middle of the afternoon. Wade climbed out onto the ledge of the nearest window and desperately gulped in the cool midnight air.

He wanted to gulp in blood. But not Peter’s. That would mean piercing that flawless, milky skin, and—how could Peter stand being so vulnerable? So sweet and so…

So…

“I’m fucked,” Wade said to the moon, resentfully. “Except for the part where I actually get fucked. Thanks, cruel world.”

 

* * *

 

“Why didn’t you touch me?” Peter demanded, the next evening, like Wade hadn’t just done him the biggest favor of his life.

Or the second-biggest. The biggest was Wade’s cock, but Wade wasn’t going to do Peter that favor, like, ever. For Peter’s own good. Which was why Wade had been avoiding him like the plague. “Why should I have?”

“The deal was that you’d—that you’d have s-sex with me,” Peter said, blushing angrily, and Wade stared, because he hadn’t even known that blushes could be angry. “And that you’d pay for Aunt May’s treatment and me going to college.”

“Listen, kid…”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Listen, adult-three-centuries-younger-than-me. I’ve been saying this for a while, but I’ll say it again—I’ve changed my mind about the deal we signed. I’m not fucking you. You still get to go to college, and your auntie still gets her chemotherapy, but your cherry stays un-popped and my balls stay blue.”

“Why?”

“Whaddaya mean, why? You get a free pass, Pete. Take it.”

“There’s no such thing as a free pass,” Peter said suspiciously.

“There is when you’re the glorified house-pet of a multi-millionaire vampire.”

“Are you impotent?” Peter asked matter-of-factly.

“What?” Wade yelped. “No! Why would you—”

“Because you. Didn’t. Touch. Me. Yesterday. And you looked kind of terrified when you were running away.”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t _running away_. That was a strategic retreat.”

“Yeah? A retreat from me and whose army?”

“The army of stupidly cute freckles on your shoulders, I dunno,” Wade muttered sullenly. “You’re pretty, you know that? Inside and out. And you deserve better.”

“I don’t care about your scars,” Peter said stubbornly.

“That? That’s the pretty you’ve got on the inside. And lemme tell ya, ain’t many unicorns like you left on this miserable planet. Forget about my bullshit deal. Go to college, get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, make out, get married, win the Nobel Prize and buy your aunt a cabin in Aspen with the prize money.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you get out of this?”

“Somebody to talk to, for a couple of years?” Jesus, that sounded pathetic. Even to him. “I just. I didn’t think I had a conscience, okay? I mean, I knew I did, just not a particularly active one? Fuck. I’m rambling.”

“You sure are,” Peter said dryly.

Wade sighed. “See, just like your pretty’s not just on the outside? My ugly’s not just on the outside, either. I’ve laughed while killing people, Pete. They were assholes, but still. After doing all that, I don’t—I don’t get to…” Wade waved at Peter vaguely. “…to besmirch you on a whim. I don’t get to touch you, to impose touch upon you, just ’cause you’re in a tough spot and I’ve got some dough. Capisce?”

Peter was looking at him strangely. The tension had left his shoulders, and he seemed… not so angry, anymore. “Well, I refuse to be a charity case.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“You’d screw a monster on principle?”

“You’re not a monster,” Peter said, very seriously.

“What is this, a Disney movie? Are we Beauty and the Beast? ‘For who could ever learn to love a beast?’”

“You watch Disney movies,” Peter said, and the strange look was back, tenfold.

“I am a deeply, deeply disturbed man. Er, vampire. Which is why you’re gonna fill out your college applications while I go out to hunt and try to only murder people who deserve it. Goodni—”

But before Wade could wish his new ward-slash-pet goodnight in a dignified way, a pair of soft, _soft_ lips were pressed against his, and he ended up letting out an undignified squeak, instead.

Peter drew back, glaring at Wade with a frankly intimidating determination. “No,” Peter said, “you’re not going to kill anyone, and you’re going to come home and f-fuck me like you promised. Because I don’t trust guys who don’t keep their promises.”

Wade, who had been frozen to the spot, found that his vocal chords had stopped functioning and that he simply, physiologically could not speak.

“Great,” said Peter, nodding firmly, like Wade had agreed. “That’s settled, then. You do me, I do college.” Peter jabbed Wade in the chest with a finger as slim and delicate as the rest of him. Not that Wade was thinking about the rest of him. “I’m nobody’s personal rescue mission, Wade Wilson. I can take care of myself.”

_Sayeth the boy who sold himself to a vampiric sugar daddy_ , Wade would have said, if he could’ve, but all he managed was a croak.

“But you were right about those college applications. There isn’t much time left.”

And Peter walked away, ostensibly to the room Wade had given him.

Turned out, Wade was fucked, after all. In every sense of the word.

 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

“Weasel. Weasel, save me.”

“From what, every mirror in your house?”

“No,” Wade said into his mobile phone, “I already know I’m fugly, thanks. You hafta save me from Peter.”

“Why would a big, strong, strapping vampire like yourself need to be saved from a tender human sapling the size of your thumb?”

“You don’t understand,” Wade hissed. “He wants to sleep with me. Well, not _wants_ , it’s more like he thinks he has to? And he… He won’t give up.”

There was a silence. Eventually, sounding considerably pissed off, Weasel said: “A tasty little morsel—nay, the tastiest morsel I have ever seen—wants you to devour him. And that’s a problem? Admit it, you didn’t call me to save you, you called me to brag.”

“That’s not—”

“Fuck you.” And Weasel hung up.

Wade gazed forlornly at the screen of his iPhone. That was it, then. If Weasel couldn’t save him, no one could.

To prevent his dumb brain from replaying Peter-themed daydreams on repeat, Wade occupied himself with obtaining May Parker’s health records, dialing a couple of Very Special numbers, and getting her transferred to the Monteverdi Cancer Clinic, the world’s premier cancer research and treatment center. Movie stars went there. Dustin Hoffman was one of the patients presently gracing its marble halls. May’s room would be adjacent to his, a luxurious, palatial suite with its own jacuzzi and lounge area, outfitted with the most top-notch medical equipment known to man. And Wade hadn’t sampled the food there, but he had it on good authority that it was downright sumptuous, prepared by award-winning chefs working in concert with renowned nutritionists.

In short, May would now be getting treatment rivaling that of the president. If the president had cancer. Which he didn’t. But still.

At Monteverdi, May would have the benefit of the most cutting-edge technology and the most ridiculously over-qualified doctors—doctors that had seats reserved on every TED panel and national advisory board.

The cost was astronomical, of course, but it wasn’t like Wade’s wealth wasn’t up to the task. To assuage his guilt over funding a private medical center that wouldn’t benefit the wider public, he made an anonymous donation of equal value to Mercy Hospital. Which made him uncomfortable as fuck, because if anyone ever found out about that then it would _so_ damage his street cred, but he figured the lives of those other elderly patients on May’s ward were worth Wade’s embarrassment.

He couldn’t believe this. He was supposed to be an asshole. He _was_ an asshole. It was just that Peter Parker was a one-man reform school. Every dart of Peter’s huge doe eyes was a steroid injection jabbed straight into Wade’s conscience. Before Peter, Wade’s conscience had been as insubstantial as a pre-serum Steve Rogers. After Peter, it was full-on Captain America. Pectorals and all. At this rate, even Wade’s scruples would have six-packs.

But while Wade could keep his donation a secret, he couldn’t keep May’s new location a secret. When he emerged from his crypt (technically his home office, but Wade would be damned before he confessed to having a _home office_ ), he saw Peter barreling down the corridor toward him, vibrating like a speedster on crack.

“You—you just—” Peter emitted garbled vowels that weren’t quite words. “Why did you—”

“Pete. Chill out, dude, you look like you’re having an aneurysm.”

“Mercy Hospital just called. They’re transferring Aunt May to Monteverdi. _Monteverdi_. How is that even—did you do it? You did it, didn’t you?”

“Erm,” said Wade, back to being uncomfortable as fuck. “I, erm. May have. Done that.” He made an abrupt about-turn and marched in the opposite direction, mostly because then he wouldn’t have to look at Peter’s face. Peter’s shining, hopeful and yet somehow pained face, like there were too many emotions in him for him to contain.

“How…” Peter’s voice cracked. “How can I pay you back for this?”

Wade’s heart squeezed, like it was in the fist of a giant that was slowly crushing it. “You don’t have to pay me back, Petey. I didn’t do it for you to feel like you owe me.”

“But I do. I owe you even more than I did before. This… This goes beyond what the contract requires of you. It stated that you had to pay for and maintain my aunt’s current care, but it didn’t say you had to _improve_ on it. By, like, a million bucks.”

“Eh, a million bucks?” Wade said lightly, with all the nonchalance he could muster. “That’s chump change for me.”

“It isn’t for me.”

Wade sped up. Maybe he could outpace Peter and Peter’s gratitude, which was bothering Wade for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. He didn’t want Peter to be _grateful_. He wanted Peter to be his usual self, snarky and proud and unbowed and—

And Peter was jogging to keep up with him. “Wade! Wade, wait up!”

“It’s time for my morning run,” Wade said, and began to actually run.

“Why’re you always running away from me?” Peter huffed, chasing Wade across the mansion in some kind of bizarre gratitude marathon. “You can’t have a morning run, you’re allergic to sunlight!”

Oh, shit. Yeah. Wade was a vampire. “I’ll put my costume on before going out.”

“Wade, stop. Talk to me.”

“I can’t,” Wade choked out. But then Peter flung himself at Wade before Wade could reach terminal velocity, and they both went crashing to the ground. “Oof!” Wade wheezed, as Peter’s knee collided with his kidney and Peter’s slight body landed atop this.

_ABORT ABORT ABORT_ , Wade shrieked at himself in horrified capital letters, because having Peter plastered to him was unwise in the extreme. He attempted scrabbling out from under Peter, but Peter was an aggressive tackler for such a tiny bean of a boy, and he stuck to Wade like a burr.

“Wade, I need you to listen to me. Listen. To me.”

“I’m listening!” Wade lied. He wasn’t. He was too busy being hyper-aware of Peter’s shape, Peter’s weight, Peter’s… everything.

“You’re…You’re not as bad of a guy as I thought,” Peter said, all in a rush.

“If that ain’t a ringing endorsement,” Wade commented, because his ears were ringing with the shrill blast of his internal proximity-to-Peter alarm going off at ninety decibels. It was deafening. “Y’know, I could be manipulating you. Convincing you to give in to me voluntarily.”

“You aren’t manipulating me.” Peter said it with an unshakable certainty.

“How can you tell? I’m more than three hundred years old. You’re, like, an infant.”

“I’m not an _infant_.” Peter scowled down at him. Wade had never seen a prettier scowl in his life. “And I know because if you were manipulating me, you wouldn’t be calling attention to the possibility that you might be manipulating me.”

“I could be playing a double game. Reverse psychology. Gaslighting. Projection. Regression.”

“Now you’re just throwing random psych terms at me.”

“I used to be in a psych ward.”

“I’m not surprised,” Peter said peacefully. Like his vampire master’s lack of stability wasn’t dangerous in the least.

It was insulting, was what it was. Wade hadn’t met a human this unafraid of him before. Dopinder and Bertha didn’t count; they’d been afraid of him for a long while. No human had been this unafraid of him right from the start.

Where had Wade gone wrong? Had he not been menacing enough? Villainous enough? It must be the chimichanga. Nobody could respect a vampire who ate chimichangas for breakfast.

“You…” Wade inhaled in an effort to center himself, but it proved to be a grave mistake; the air Wade breathed in was 5% oxygen and 95% eau de twink. “You need to get off me.” Damn, that figure of speech was just asking for a sex joke, wasn’t it?

Predictably, Peter ran with it. “You need to get off, period. Preferably with my assistance.”

“Nope! Nope, I don’t need to get my rocks off. I have no idea where you got that idea, but—”

“You just said ‘idea’ twice in the same sentence.”

“Gee, thanks, [Grammarly](https://www.grammarly.com/).”

“It _is_ an awesome tool.” Peter grinned. Shakily.

It was the loveliest thing Wade had ever seen. “No, I’m a tool. As in, a class A bastard with all the morals of one of those cackling hyenas from the Lion King.”

Peter’s lips twitched. “You’re making Disney references again.”

“Should I start making Hitchcock references? Would that scare you away from me?”

“I’m not sure anything can.”

“Great. Just great.” It was only instinct to quail before a predator. Were Peter’s instincts malfunctioning? Or was Wade just that much of a loser? “I’m vampiring so well.”

“Vampiring isn’t a verb.”

“It should be.”

They looked at each other.

And looked.

And looked.

It was too similar to a Moment™ for Wade’s comfort, too similar to the stereotypical staring-into-each-other’s-eyes in B-grade romance movies. They were smiling, for cripes’ sake. _Wade_ was smiling. And Wade didn’t smile. He smirked; he leered; he sneered. But he didn’t smile. It was like his facial muscles were moving without his permission, forming expressions he hadn’t formed since—

Since he’d been human, too. Since he’d last been in love.

Wade coughed, shattering the moment that was most definitely not a Moment™. When he gently pushed at Peter, Peter climbed off him, cooperating for once. Wade got to his feet, until he was towering above Peter again, as he should be. Wade was a vampire, after all, not a Care Bear. Looming was what he did.

“Okay,” Wade said, and Peter brightened. “Okay, we’re gonna do this. But we do it my way. I’m the master, remember? I call the shots.”

“Uh-huh,” Peter said, with such a stellar absence of conviction that it galled. “You call the shots.”

“You think you call the shots, don’t you?”

Peter quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”

“You—” Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re going to go to my bedroom. You are _not_ going to remove your clothes. All you’re going to do is roll up the sleeve on your left arm, and I’m going to drink from your wrist. And after I’ve fed, you’re going to leave and go back to your own room. Understand?”

“I don’t understand. What about the sex?”

“What about it?”

“Aren’t we having it?”

“My way, Peter. My. Way. I’m not going to ravish you like some type of Viking despoiler, without waiting for you to be mentally prepared for it. First, I’m going to acquaint you with what it’s like to be fed on. And if you’re still all right with being near me, we’ll see about the ravishing.”

Peter studied him. “You’re trying to frighten me away,” he said wonderingly. “Aren’t you? You’re hoping I’ll be so freaked out by you feeding on me that I’ll give up on you. On the contract,” he amended quickly. “You’re hoping I’ll give up on fulfilling my end of the contract, even though you’ve more than fulfilled yours.”

“Are you… Are you saying it’s _unfair_ to you that I’m not taking advantage of you?”

“It’s not taking advantage of me if it’s something I consented to. In print, no less.”

“Jesus Christ. A’ight, go to my room, then. Stew in your own adrenaline for a while. I’ll join you when I’ve…” _When I’ve jacked off so I can control myself when I’m around you_. “…when I’m ready.” 

“What do you have to be ready for?”

“The loss of what remains of my sanity, maybe,” Wade murmured, and headed for the closest bathroom.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post another update tomorrow! Thank you to everyone for your reviews; they're the reason I'm updating so fast!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating has been upped to Explicit. Thank you!

* * *

 

Wade hovered in front of his own bedroom door like a nervous young pup hovering in front of the door of his prom date. Which was ridiculous, because a contractual appointment to suck somebody’s blood was not a date. The door’s handle was slippery in his sweaty grip. Wade couldn’t recall ever sweating as a vampire; he’d never been terrified enough for it.

He was terrified now. And he hadn’t been this terrified since he’d been a mere mortal on the brink of a disease-ridden, agonizing death.

Who would’ve guessed he’d be just as terrified of Peter Parker?

Steeling himself, Wade opened the door.

The lights were off. Which suited Wade and Wade’s night-vision just fine, but… it wouldn’t suit Peter. So Wade didn’t lock the door, leaving it slightly ajar, and illumination from beyond subtly lightened the room. Wade peered into the semi-gloom.

Yep, that was Peter. Sitting on Wade’s bed, thankfully clothed, but _sitting on Wade’s bed_.

Wade all but backflipped out of the room. If it was a badass backflip, it couldn’t be classified as “running away,” could it?

Peter wasn’t having it, though. Mulishly, he held out his arm. His spindly, breakable left arm, that Wade could probably snap like a twig.

But Peter didn’t get that, did he? He didn’t get how deadly Wade was, what Wade could do, what Wade regularly did.

It was time to show him. 

Wade stalked toward the bed, keeping his footsteps soundless and catlike, and letting Peter _see_ that, letting Peter see how Wade could prowl, how he could hunt his prey.

Peter shivered. His outstretched arm withdrew slightly before he extended it again. He raised his chin defiantly, meeting Wade’s eyes. It was as if he was saying, _I realize what you’re doing. It won’t phase me._

Oh, it wouldn’t, would it?

Wade allowed his eyes to glow, flaring as they did prior to a feed, taking on the reddish tint of smoldering embers. When he sat beside Peter, Peter jumped. With a slow, deliberate menace, Wade grasped Peter’s forearm and skimmed his fingernails along it, from the inside of the elbow to the wrist.

He paused there, at Peter’s wrist, testing it, hearkening to it.

Peter’s pulse was racing.

“You’re…” Peter faltered. “We’re still sitting.”

Wade repeated his caress, delicately threatening as it was, his fingernails grazing Peter’s arm in another barely-there sweep. “And?”

“We should be lying down.”

“We are not lying down.”

“Why not?”

_Because it’ll be even more difficult for me to resist fucking you_. “Because I say so.”

“You can’t—”

“Peter,” Wade growled, “you’re going to shut up. Unless you wanna ask me to stop. Do you want me to stop?”

Peter’s jaw snapped closed. He shook his head vigorously.

“Good boy,” Wade said, and lifted Peter’s wrist to his mouth. The pounding of Peter’s blood was audible from here, each throb of it reverberating in Wade’s ears, Wade’s flesh, Wade’s very soul. Peter’s scent surrounded him again, dizzying and maddening, and Wade’s fangs burned as they slid out of his swollen gums. He felt parched. Drunk. Addled. And he hadn’t even begun feeding yet.

The beast in him yearned to bite—rip—rend—but some deeper longing made him moan, made him lick a hot stripe up the center of Peter’s palm.

Peter’s fingers trembled, brushing softly against Wade’s face.

Wade’s eyes drifted shut. He licked Peter’s hand again and again, from fingertips to base, the scrape of his tongue drawing blood to the surface. It was part-feral, part-patient. He was dimly aware that he was rumbling, a low, continuous, bestial sound, like that of an animal.

Peter was breathing faster. Maybe it was lust. Maybe it was terror. Wade was beyond distinguishing which it was, knowing only that Peter was reacting, a reaction dredged up from the darkest corners of Wade’s mind, from his hidden fantasies of defiling Peter, corrupting him, ruining him.

When Wade sealed his mouth over Peter’s wrist and _sucked_ , Peter jolted, and then Peter’s heart was hammering, loud enough to drown out Wade’s subvocal snarl. Wade pressed his fangs against the thin, sensitive skin shielding Peter’s radial artery, denting it but not piercing it, teasing himself with the nearness of Peter’s blood. Tormenting himself. Punishing himself, because god knew he deserved it.

“Ask me to stop,” Wade slurred drunkenly against Peter’s wrist. “Peter, _ask_ me.”

But Peter only sobbed. Wade told himself Peter wasn’t sobbing in fear, because the alternative was unacceptable, because the alternative would have Wade fashioning a stake out of his own coffin and impaling himself on it. All Wade could do in this instant was _take_ , finallyfinallyfinally, a fever igniting within him like flash-paper catching fire, a wall of blazing heat shimmering through him, consuming him.

Peter’s skin tore like the sheerest silk. Wade’s fangs sank into it as if into butter; there was no barrier, no resistance, no struggle. Peter was so easy, so generous, so giving that Wade took and took, helpless not to. There was a distant inner voice cautioning Wade to pace himself, to sip instead of gulp, but Peter’s blood was so hot and coppery that Wade gasped as he drank. Precious drops slipped free in his haste, dribbling warmly down Wade’s chin.

It was shocking, how sweet-salty Peter tasted and how greedy Wade was for him. It was savage. A bottomless chasm of hunger yawned open within Wade, and he hurtled over the edge and into the abyss. He couldn’t hold back. Swallow after swallow, mouthful after mouthful, Peter gave it up for him and Wade claimed it. There were wet, rhythmic noises that resembled those of a raw fuck, and in Wade’s psyche, images flashed by of Peter folded in half, rutted into, wanton and wild.

Peter was squirming against him, and it was only then Wade noticed that he’d dragged Peter near, that he’d tipped Peter _back_ , and that Peter was now flat against the bed, pinned beneath him. Fighting him. Fighting him?

Wade broke away, panting, and saw that Peter’s eyes were wide, the pupils blown and black. The punctures in Peter’s wrist were closing as the residue of Wade’s saliva healed them, but streaks of blood still trickled down his arm. Splotches of red stained the sheets. It was a scene right out of Wade’s nightmares, out of his most longed-for dreams, and Peter was—

Peter was reaching for him. Taking Wade’s hand and bringing it between Peter’s legs, where Peter was hard.

Hard. Peter was _hard_.

Wade knew, intellectually, that it was just a biological response, a substitute for the typical fight-or-flight response. A product of the limbic system going into overdrive. It occurred with some feeding victims—not often, and not with Wade’s, but it did. It could. It was nothing new.

It still hit Wade like a wrecking ball.

It hit him like a physical blow, because this was _Peter_ , his Peter, uttering small whimpers, rubbing Wade’s hand against his crotch because he just couldn’t help it, being rough with it because Wade wasn’t. Peter’s denim-clad cock strained against his fly, dampening it through two layers of cloth. Peter ground it viciously against the heel of Wade’s palm. Before Wade could process what was happening, Peter was coming—spilling into his jeans with a buck of his hips and a sharp cry, his head thrown back on the pillow, baring his throat. The veins stood out, obscenely inviting, and Wade groaned like a starving man.

“Do it,” Peter rasped, still hoarse from his scream, still delirious from his climax. He angled his head back even further, his eyelids dipping as if he was drugged. “Wade, _do_ it.”

But Peter didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. His scent was all musk and semen, but there was blood drying on him. His cheeks were flushed with arousal, but beneath that flush was an anemic pallor. He limbs had a postcoital lassitude, but his chest rose and fell as desperately as that of someone who had been strangled.

Wade scrambled back, or tried to, but Peter wouldn’t release him.

“Wade…” Peter tugged at him feebly. “You haven’t come. Should I… I could…”

“You—” Wade fought to speak despite the bile creeping up his gullet. The fact that he was also hard wasn’t a fact that even registered with him. All he could see was Peter, drained almost empty. It set off a mingled joy and horror within Wade, a fulfillment beyond comprehension that blanketed him in a mind-numbing bliss, even as that bliss warred with a harrowing, all-encompassing shame. After being turned, this was the closest Wade had ever gotten to feeling _alive_ , the closest he’d ever gotten to intimacy with a person. Except that this wasn’t intimacy. It was a mirage. Peter was hurt, and Wade had hurt him. “Let go of me. You have to—I have to fetch you a towel. Wipe you clean.”

“Wade… Wade, I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.” Wade laughed, jagged and strange. “Look at you. You have blood on you. Your own blood. And you’re—you didn’t even consent to—you had no clue what this would do to you. Sexually. Neither did I, because it’s never happened when I’ve fed, but I should’ve—I should’ve warned you about it anyway, I should’ve—”

Peter pulled him down so that they lay face-to-face. “Breathe,” said Peter. “Just breathe. I’m too woozy to move, and you’re too panicky to not board the next plane to Mexico just to get away from me, so… Breathe.”

Wade breathed. And quaked. And breathed. Peter wrapped him in an embrace he was wholly undeserving of, but Wade couldn’t shrug it off, couldn’t evade it, couldn’t leave Peter alone after what Wade had done to him. The least he could do was to be with Peter through the aftermath.

“You’re guilt-tripping worse than a Catholic, I can tell,” Peter whispered into Wade’s collarbone. “I’m _okay_ , Wade. The feeding wasn’t even painful like I’d expected it to be. It was intense, but, um, I liked it? My soggy boxers are a testament to how much I liked it.”

“Peter… Having an orgasm isn’t the same as liking how you got that orgasm.”

“I liked how I got it, too. So stop shaking like a leaf, it’s wigging me out. You’re supposed to be the master, right? You’re in charge.”

“You believe that about as much as you believe in Santa.”

“Hey, don’t mock Santa. I bet he wouldn’t call me a ‘good boy’ the way you called me a ‘good boy.’”

Wade winced.

“Er. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that? Did I traumatize you? Sorry.”

“Aren’t I the one who traumatized you?”

“I just came my brains out, gimme a couple seconds to be appropriately cowed by you.”

“You’re…” Wade dropped his forehead onto Peter’s shoulder. He could still taste Peter’s blood, but the sick, roiling remorse within him was fading as it dawned on him that Peter was genuinely unharmed. The more Peter babbled, the more reassured Wade was. Peter was weakened, yes, but not irrevocably. Rest and nourishment would restore him to normalcy. “You’re impossible.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. And I mean that. Don’t.”

As the minutes passed, Peter’s breaths evened out. Soon Wade had an armful of sleeping boy to contend with, along with the sneaking, awful suspicion that in his endeavor to teach Peter the all-important lesson of staying the fuck away from him, he’d gone and given a sex-deprived virgin an orgasm that would, if anything, only encourage Peter to seek him out.

Shit.

Wade would have to get the chef to supply Peter with iron-rich crap like spinach and kale all week. Heck, maybe imbibing gross spinach smoothies would dissuade Peter when monsters couldn’t.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all your comments, my dear friends! The updates for this story are going to slow down a bit because I'm going back to working on [Wolves](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7969831/chapters/18230584) as well. Twice the fic takes twice the time; you know how it is. But I'm still going to be updating as often as I can, all because of your lovely feedback! Bless you! <3!

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)! I also run a blog for my [original gay fiction](http://dominiquefrost.tumblr.com/).


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